‘Liberty and Prosperity’: NJ Faces Court-Mandated Refresher on Motto

New Jersey is known for many things: unbeatable bagels, iconic shoreline, and an authenticity that some interpret as rudeness. Do you need examples? Fuhgeddaboudit. In American history, the Garden State also played a significant role as the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights. During this era, it also adopted the motto “Liberty and Prosperity” – a watchword that’s become tragically ironic over the 248 years since its adoption.

New Jersey seems to have forgotten about liberty and prosperity

New Jersey’s recent actions have proven inhospitable to the prosperity of unborn children and hostile to the First Amendment liberties of the New Jerseyans dedicated to providing for women facing unplanned pregnancies. Few stories demonstrate this more clearly than Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s targeted harassment of First Choice Women’s Resource Centers – a legal saga that finally unfolded before the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month.

First Choice is a 40-year-old nonprofit that has served over 36,000 women facing unexpected pregnancy. First Choice seeks to defend its First Amendment rights to speech and association in federal court, instead of waiting for the government-sponsored harassment in state court to end. But the legal fight has implications far beyond the question of jurisdiction.

An abortion tourist trap

First, some context. New Jersey ranks among the country’s dozen most pro-abortion states. In 2020, 48,830 children were aborted in the state, a rate of 29.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age. Since Roe v. Wade fell, the state has codified a “constitutional right to the freedom of reproductive choice.” NJ.gov offers thorough details about how all “pregnant individuals” may terminate their pregnancies – regardless of the child’s gestational age or any guardian or partner’s knowledge or consent. The state stopped submitting its abortion numbers to the CDC in 2021. As a matter of public policy, New Jersey pits the prosperity of unborn children against that of their mothers.

Channeling this pro-abortion fervor, in July 2022 (one month after Roe’s fall), the N.J. attorney general established a “Strike Force” to promote abortion access and coordinate a statewide “consumer alert” about pregnancy centers, specifically because these pro-life nonprofits – wait for it – “do NOT provide abortion[s].”

In 2023, the attorney general followed through by serving a widespread subpoena to First Choice – a network of five centers offering free ultrasounds and pregnancy counseling in some of the state’s neediest urban centers. The subpoena demanded the private communications that center personnel shared with affiliate organizations, including Heartbeat International, without alleging any violation of the law or even indicating that his office had received a single complaint.

First Choice responds

“Most aggressively,” the pregnancy center’s opening legal brief notes, “the Attorney General demand[ed] the full names, phone numbers, addresses, and present or last known place of employment of every one of First Choice’s donors who gave through any means other than one specific website marketed towards its donors.” The sweeping state demands would extend to attendees at the nonprofit’s annual benefit dinners and a full review of the “widows’ mites” – the identity of literal church nonnas filling baby bottles with coins for the pregnancy centers. 

Unconvincingly, the attorney general suggests that donors might be confused – duped into supporting an organization that’s not as enthusiastic about abortion as he is. Donors would, in this dark fairy tale, miss all formal disclaimers about First Choice not referring for or performing abortion and obtusely misread the collage of babies on the ministry’s donation landing page for the sort of “family planning” organization that blithely profits off of the termination of human life.

The New Jersey AG is not the only one

The attorney general’s harassment of one pregnancy resource network is bad enough, and New Jersey citizens deserve more respect for their rights to free speech and association. But this political hostility is part of a larger effort to silence and intimidate life-affirming viewpoints. Since Roe’s fall, almost 100 pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations have been attacked. Federal lawmakers have introduced legislation to weaponize the Federal Trade Commission against pregnancy help organizations. State legislators and attorneys general have introduced a wide range of bills and law enforcement strategies to target and harass pregnancy centers. Attorney General Platkin’s “Strike Force” is simply the latest example.

Opponents often accuse pro-life advocates of being “pro-birth” and abandoning moms and children at their earliest convenience. But there is an inconvenient mountain of evidence proving otherwise. Last month, the Charlotte Lozier Institute released its 2025 National Pregnancy Center report documenting the over $452 million in total medical care, support and educational services, and material goods provided by 2,775 pregnancy centers in 2024 alone. About 8 in 10 centers provide free or low-cost medical service, staffed by 10,000 medical professionals. In 2024 alone, U.S. pregnancy centers across the country saw 1 million new clients over the course of the year, and client satisfaction was at 98%.

The Supreme Court can remind New Jersey of its obligations

First Choice is a powerful microcosm of the broader efforts to protect unborn lives and help moms and families thrive. New Jersey has tragically forgotten its enthusiasm for the First Amendment, but the Supreme Court has the chance to remind her of what true “Liberty and Prosperity” looks like for all her citizens.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.